


Sleeping Arrangements

by Hannah



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Norway (Country), Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Snow, Trope Reconstruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27922450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: Giles fights one last battle before finally laying down to rest - and achieves another victory in the process.
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers
Comments: 12
Kudos: 30





	Sleeping Arrangements

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunalso](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunalso/gifts).



> Thanks to [Allison42](https://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewuser.php?uid=22609), [andtheyfightcrime](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/andtheyfightcrime/), and [DirtyAim](https://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewuser.php?uid=23742) for cheerleading and encouragement, and [Niamh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niamh/pseuds/Niamh), [Sandy_S](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandy_s/pseuds/sandy_s), and [Yellowb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowb) for beta-reading.

That one-horse open sleighs happened to be the most efficient method for transportation through the wintertime Norwegian countryside was a source of singular delight to their group. Singing the relevant song raised spirits high enough to cut through the worst of the post-battle fatigue and get most everyone smiling. Giles wasn’t terrifically fond of the song himself, made worse by the lack of agreement of which key it was to be sung in, but he accepted the singing for what it was: the joy of camaraderie, the cheerfulness of having done good work, a way to distract from the cold, the knowledge they’d all be back in their safe, familiar beds in Hampshire by no later than the day after tomorrow.

But tonight, there was one final battle before any of them could properly rest. While Giles wasn’t the only one of their group qualified to wage it, he’d heard the way their singing had fallen low and faded away, and he pulled on all his reserves of strength for what he hoped was the night’s last such encounter.

“Eleven of us. I do apologize, I know it’s short notice, but…” But they’d only received the rumblings from just outside Bodø two days earlier, and there had barely been time to assess the scope of the possible threat before setting out against it. Giles had hoped it was just another opportunistic would-be demonic warlord taking on the shambling, stumbling Slayer Council to make a show of force and consolidate their power. Such things were becoming nearly routine.

“It’s really quite all right.” The desk manager, Iben, smiled gently at him and resumed typing at her kiosk. “Will you need eleven rooms?” 

“Yes, yes please.” He nearly felt like laughing and finally let himself take off his coat, shaking the last of the snow free from his shoulders to fall to the floor around his boots. “If you could manage, it’d be absolutely splendid.” They’d not set out to face a warlord, but a sovereign, already secure in her power with all manner of demons behind her and gathering still more, calling herself Sycorax and howling down the winds through her horns and her fists.

“Not a problem. Not a problem. There’s –”

“No. Wait. My apologies, but perhaps…” Perhaps after the battle they’d been through, none of the girls ought to sleep alone tonight. For all the battles they’d fought together, Giles had never quite stopped thinking of the new Slayers of the world as girls. “I’m sorry for the fuss, but I don’t think we need eleven single rooms.” Well. Not all of them. “Perhaps just six rooms, five for two, one for, well. One for one.”

“No fuss at all.” Iben looked back at her kiosk for more clicking and typing. “Suites, then? We have a block of them available, if you want to room right up next to each other.”

“Yes. Yes, that we’d like. Are there any rooms suitable for one, with a single bed, in that block?”

“There’s a few in there, yes. For yourself, I take it?”

“That would, yes, that would be preferable.” The rumblings had barely begun before they’d became a roar: _you’re needed, come now_. Hardly time to gather weapons, certainly not to see to post-battle accommodations. A plane flight, a sleigh ride, a tromp through the forest. Leaving their bags with the horses, carrying only their weapons with them, the snow had cracked and crunched under their boots. Now, back in human civilization, perhaps not too much the worse for wear but weary, worn, nearly wrecked, Giles found himself mourning all over again over the network and resources that had been lost just three years earlier. Back then, there’d have been someone on the Watchers Council’s payroll who would have booked them suites well before the plane left the airport. But tonight, the eleven of them had all returned from the woods and the snow, and far better to put his focus and concern on getting them all places to sleep. Better to ask Iben, “Out of curiosity, how many beds per room?”

“Most rooms in that block are stationed with two, though we have a few cots available. Do you anticipate needing any?” 

“Ah. No, no. Come to think of it, the doubles should be fine.”

“I beg your pardon, but there might be an issue.” Giles snapped his head up, but Iben’s dark eyes were gentle. “No, I misspoke. Not an issue, but I want to make sure we’re using the same words for the same things. A double room is a room with two beds, while a double bed is a single double-wide bed intended for two.”

“Ah. I see. Important clarification indeed.” He relaxed slightly. “So you have numerous rooms with two beds available in that block,” he said, for the sake of personal certainty.

“We do.”

“And rooms with one double bed?”

“There’s three of those available.”

“All right.” Giles looked at the miniscule war party far across the lobby, eight Slayers, one would-be Watcher in training, and one vampire. All of them back safe and sound, thank heavens. They’d pulled chairs and a couch into a ring to huddle together and slowly warm themselves around the columnal fireplace, and then back to Iben. “Those sound like what we’re after tonight.”

“And with that, will it be six rooms? We have one with three beds, two twins and a double, if that sounds at all like what you’re after.”

“It – it may well be, though there’s some in our group that…” He shook his head. “A moment?”

“Of course,” Iben said, and began to actively wait patiently. It was a skill which must have taken her years to properly cultivate – one she was quite well-practiced in, from how she seemed to fade into the background as soon as she wasn’t being called upon. Giles pulled his attention away from idle admiration and back to the people sitting around the fire.

Barely four hours earlier, they’d been cutting their way through a platoon of demons with all manner of fists and scales and fangs. Buffy met Sycorax one on one, a true general against a would-be pretender, to cut her down and scatter her followers, to stand tall and victorious against the cold hard stars of the endless nighttime sky above the Arctic circle. Both armies left the fallen, driven snow of the battlefield cut through with blood that steamed and blood that froze and blood that practically glowed in the moonlight. Buffy had been the one to walk away, but she’d been one of the few who hadn’t sung along on the ride back. Spike, whom Giles had seen clearly wanting to sing, had instead sat next to Buffy in shared silence the whole ride back to the city with his arms wrapped around her, his body providing no heat but his presence clearly comforting to Buffy just the same – but now, indoors, sitting apart.

There’d not been much room for Buffy and Spike to occupy space in each other’s lives in these last few months. After Sunnydale, after Los Angeles, after the two of them had achieved some manner of open communication that itself didn’t provide an understanding of how to meet each other again as adults, as individuals capable of a sustained romantic relationship, as people – and much as Giles hadn’t stopped thinking of the Slayers as girls, he’d found himself thinking of Spike as _people._

It always pained Giles’s heart to see Buffy love so deeply and deny herself a source of joy. It burned his heart to see Spike show himself capable of such transformation and change, Spike always letting Buffy set the terms of their relationship no matter how hard he wanted it to be otherwise, demonstrating the power of his soul and his capacity for choice.

It broke Giles’s heart to see how much they’d all changed, and the ways they hadn’t changed at all.

It wasn’t his place to offer words of encouragement or support to Buffy and Spike. Nothing so mild, nothing so slight, not for a woman like her or, yes, a person like him.

Giles turned back to Iben. “A room for one for myself, four rooms with two beds for two, and one room for two with one double bed, please.”

“Ah.” She smiled slyly, making him feel ten years younger. “Absolutely, sure thing.” 

And that was that. Key cards were issued, instructions written on envelopes, and ten heads turned Giles’s way when he cleared his throat. Ten people reached out, and eight of them received rooms at random, allowing them the time to further their impromptu social bonding. They all rode the lift together, and Giles hurried down the hall, slipping into his own room with its ocean of a bed all to himself before anyone could call out to wish him a good-night and delay him long enough to be asked why there was only one bed in a room for two.

Let Buffy and Spike be surprised by what they found instead.

If Giles knew them – if he could trust them to be themselves – he could well and truly picture any number of possibilities with only one inevitable outcome. He knew them, and himself, well enough for all that.

Let them be surprised, and debate theories over what had happened that there was only one bed for the two of them. Let them have a good time. Let them use actions instead of words. Let them use having only one bed as a reason, as an excuse, as they saw fit.

Let them wonder what good fortune had befallen them. Come morning, Giles would sip his tea and eat his toast and not say a thing.

**Author's Note:**

> The request was for fluff, snow, and there to be only one bed. The hotel used in the fic is a real one: Scandic Havet, one of the most luxurious hotels in Bodø. While I couldn't find a good layout of the lobby, I'm making the artistic call Giles could see the fireplace and lounge from the front desk for narrative convenience.


End file.
